Nubia Z80 Ultra review: Incredible performance, but at what cost?

Greatest Costs At present: Nubia Z80 Extremely

With the Nubia Z80 Extremely, one of many smaller Chinese language smartphone manufacturers units out to refine its attractive flagship killer blueprint.

The Nubia Z70 Extremely (and its pointless revision, the Nubia Z70S Extremely) each offered as all-singing ‘Extremely’ telephones, however made some sensible concessions to hit a value of round half a Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely.

On this next-gen replace, the design is a little bit softer, the efficiency marks a step up (providing an early glimpse on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in motion), and the battery is even larger. We even get wi-fi charging this time round.

Does that sound like sufficient of an improve to you? With a decrease beginning value of £579, it simply may. Additional refinements are required, however the Nubia Z80 Extremely presents loads to admire.

Design & Construct

• Large and heavy
• IP68/IP69 licensed
• Extra curvaceous than earlier than
• Starry Evening version definitely makes an impression

Whereas each different Android producer is attempting to make their telephones appear to be an iPhone, Nubia shoots for a retro digital camera aesthetic.

Factors for originality, then. Within the fingers, nonetheless, Nubia’s design work has by no means been my favorite. The identical is true of the Z80 Extremely, which broadly sticks to the look of the Z70 Extremely earlier than it.

It’s barely softer and rounder, with a touch of curvature to the aluminium body and to the sides of the rear cowl glass. The digital camera module, too, is much less of a crude slab than earlier than, with a smaller floor space and a taper to the left and proper sides.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Even so, this stays a really large cellphone. It’s 8.6mm and 227g, which is even thicker and heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely.

The Z80 Extremely doesn’t fairly really feel fairly premium sufficient to promote the classic digital camera look, although construct high quality is clearly of an honest normal. The availability of each IP68 and IP69 certification ensures a better-than-usual stage of water resistance.

The finishes are available in Black, White, or Blue. The latter, which my take a look at mannequin is available in, is a particular version ‘Starry Evening Version’, riffing on the well-known portray from Vincent Van Gogh.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Personally, I discovered the painterly swirls and the lacquered, shimmery impact to be ever so barely cheesy. However as somebody who can usually be discovered complaining about how boring trendy telephones look – and who loves that Apple gave us a brilliant orange choice for the iPhone 17 Professional – I really feel it could be churlish to complain an excessive amount of right here.

Just like the earlier fashions, Nubia has gone above and past with its bodily controls. In addition to the same old quantity and energy buttons, there’s a slider change on the left edge that – reward be – now strikes between sound modes by default relatively than leaping into the digital camera app.

For the latter, there’s a two-stage digital camera shutter button that falls neatly underneath your proper forefinger. It’s sprung good, too, so you possibly can reliably half-press to lock focus, then press all the way in which to take a snap.

Display & Audio system

• 6.85-inch 1.5K AMOLED show
• 144Hz refresh fee
• So-so stereo audio system

After Nubia upgraded its show for the Nubia Z70 Extremely, it’s maybe no shock to see the Nubia Z80 Extremely holding place. It makes use of what seems to be the identical 6.85-inch BOE AMOLED panel.

This packs a pointy 1216 x 2688 (sometimes called 1.5K) decision, and a higher-than-usual 144Hz refresh fee. The latter is admittedly solely helpful in a comparatively small choice of video games which were designed to output at elevated body charges, however at the least the Z80 Extremely has the processing energy to again it up – extra on that later.

Elsewhere, a peak brightness of 2000 nits falls nicely wanting true flagships, however supplies ample open air brightness nonetheless.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Just like the RedMagic 11 Professional – a £600 gaming cellphone additionally made by Nubia – the Z80 Extremely show stashes its selfie digital camera underneath its show. This has destructive repercussions for selfies, however in show phrases, at the least it’s a notable constructive.

Video and gaming content material is allowed to stretch out with no bothersome notch getting in the way in which.

The audio provision isn’t fairly as convincing. Stereo audio system flank that enormous show, however the output is considerably missing in low-end heft. Increase the amount as much as larger ranges, and the impact is kind of grating, even when the audio stays sufficiently clear.

Specs & Efficiency

• Powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
• As much as 24GB RAM and 1TB storage
• Class-leading efficiency

One of many methods by which Nubia – nonetheless a comparatively minor participant on the smartphone scene – cleverly attracts consideration with its flagship telephones is by making them among the many first to characteristic Qualcomm’s newest high-end System on Chip (SoC).

That’s as true of the Nubia Z80 Extremely because it was of the Z70 Extremely and the Z60 Extremely. This time round, it’s the flip of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – an elaborately named chip that provides an almighty, iPhone-rivalling stage of CPU and GPU efficiency.

It additionally runs as much as 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM. My take a look at mannequin is the mid-tier 16GB variant, whereas even the entry-level 12GB mannequin ought to show ample.

Operating by way of our typical suite of benchmark assessments, the Nubia Z80 Extremely impresses. It’s considerably quicker than the Redmagic 10S Professional and the OnePlus 13, with single-core CPU efficiency that matches the iPhone 17 Professional, and multi-core efficiency that blasts previous it.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

In relation to the GPU, our GFXBench assessments don’t reveal an excessive amount of. The cellphone is topping out at 60fps, similar to the Nubia Z70 Extremely, however is kind of clearly able to extra. It appears to be a quirk of the way in which Nubia’s telephones work together with the app, and the model isn’t distinctive in displaying such behaviour.

Extra revealingly, I ran the cellphone by way of 3DMark’s sustained efficiency assessments, which contain 20 consecutive minute-long intensive GPU exercises. The Nubia Z80 Extremely carried out nicely, with a Photo voltaic Bar Excessive Stress Check stability rating (representing the space between one of the best and lowest loop scores) of 70.9%. That’s round 10% wanting the Redmagic 11 Professional with its monstrous cooling system, however is fairly good for a ‘regular’ cellphone.

It falls behind the iPhone 17 Professional by way of particular person loop outcomes, however beats it by 10% by way of stability. And sure, the cellphone was uncomfortably sizzling after operating the aforementioned heavy workload – far hotter than Apple’s newest flagship cellphone with its personal improved thermals.

What this actually means is that the cellphone can run at an honest lick over prolonged durations. In gaming phrases, the Z80 Extremely runs Future: Rising fluidly on Max body fee (90fps) and Extremely rendering high quality, which is nearly as good as any cellphone proper now (together with the iPhone 17 Professional).

Nubia Z80 Extremely benchmarks

Cameras

• 50Mp principal digital camera
• 64Mp 3.3x telephoto
• 50Mp ultra-wide
• Poor 16Mp in-display entrance digital camera

Quite curiously, Nubia made its main modifications to the Z70 Extremely digital camera with the Nubia Z70S Extremely – a nominally half-generational replace. That leaves the Nubia Z80 Extremely with little, if something, to supply by way of recent options.

Because of this it runs a 50Mp 1/1.3-inch Gentle & Shadow Grasp 990 principal sensor, which is bigger than the 1/1.56-inch sensor of the Z70 Extremely. Once more, we’ve seen this earlier than.

What you don’t get is the Z70 Extremely’s splashy variable aperture. It’s not an enormous loss, to be honest, because the Nubia Z80 Extremely can take pictures with superior depth and element. It might probably battle with overexposure, although.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Nubia adopts the photographic fanatic language of focal lengths over the extra generally acknowledged zoom ranges – so it’s 35mm and 18mm relatively than 1x and ultra-wide – however the digital camera system itself stays a little bit hit or miss.

There’s a reasonably constant tone between the three cameras (a 64Mp telephoto and a 50Mp ultra-wide fill out the providing) this time round, at the least. You’ll discover a clear uptick in graininess with the ultra-wide digital camera, but it surely appears as if Nubia has accomplished some work matching its temperature as much as the primary sensor.

The drop off in high quality in zoomed pictures past 85mm, in the meantime, is kind of pronounced. Nubia doesn’t make it significantly intuitive to zoom in additional, which might be a superb factor.

Evening mode kicks in robotically and captures clear and balanced low-light snaps. There’s a slight stage of artificiality to the extent of brightening, however I used to be typically happy with the outcomes.

The most important weak point right here is the 16Mp selfie digital camera. In inserting it beneath the show, Nubia has mainly condemned its cellphone to being a write-off for anybody who takes numerous selfies. It truly is that dangerous, with smudgey, low-detail pictures which have had a lot processing thrown at them, they seem to have had a nasty retro filter utilized to them.

I’m nonetheless not a fan of Nubia’s digital camera UI. Apart from the considerably pretentious use of focal lengths – with the odd confusion use of 10x thrown into the combination – we have now a largely pointless Road pictures mode along with the common Photograph and Professional ones.

Then there’s the irritating software of a watermark out of the field, in addition to beautifying results that give facial options an eerily faux glow.

It’s one other digital camera set-up that, whereas fairly efficient in sure situations, isn’t constant or spectacular sufficient to warrant the professional photographer posturing.

Battery Life & Charging

• 7200mAh battery
• 80W wired charging
• Wi-fi charging lastly added
• No charger within the field

Maybe essentially the most improved ingredient of the entire Nubia Z80 Extremely bundle is its battery and charging provision. It feels churlish to level out that its predecessors have been hardly missing in these departments.

It’s undeniably spectacular to see a fair larger 7200mAh battery put in within the cellphone, although. This isn’t merely a cellphone that may limp to 2 days in case your utilization is mild – it’ll make bedtime on the second day with relative ease.

On one explicit day of lighter-than-ordinary utilization, on a secure Wi-Fi community and with round two hours and half-hour of display time, I used to be nonetheless left with 90% within the tank. That’s extraordinary, and signifies that you may in all probability begin to take into account a 3rd day of utilization in case you’re not a heavy consumer.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Whenever you do hit the cellphone with extra intensive media utilization, nonetheless, the Z80 Extremely continues to underperform. Whereas a PCMark Work 3.0 battery take a look at rating of 10 hours and 11 minutes is a full hour longer than the Nubia Z70S Extremely managed, it nonetheless falls 4 hours and 40 minutes wanting the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, and more than 9 hours shy of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

80W wired charging support remains, and is good enough to get you from empty to 64% in 30 minutes, and on to 100% in a little under an hour – provided you activate the Turbo charging mode in the Settings menu.

This isn’t merely a phone that can limp to two days if your usage is light – it’ll make bedtime on the second day with relative ease

It’s also required that you provide a compatible charger. Unfortunately, Nubia stopped supplying such an accessory in the box with the Z70S Ultra. Thankfully, I still had the Z70 Ultra charger to hand, but I also tried using one of Xiaomi’s 120W chargers, and it proved much slower.

Arguably bigger news than the expanded battery is the fact that Nubia has finally given in and added wireless charging to the package – and at up to 80W wireless, too, if you have the necessary charging kit. No, it’s not Qi2, but one step at a time.

Software & AI

• Android 16 with Nebula AIOS 2.0
• Google Discover feed is gone again
• Limited AI tools
• Only 3 years of support promised

Nubia’s Nebula AIOS is back in its second full iteration, where it sits on top of Android 16.

It hasn’t developed much from the first version, which is a shame. This is arguably the area to which I would have liked to have seen the most attention paid.

Or should that be the least attention? This is the sort of overly fussy, congested custom Android UI that just makes me wish the manufacturer had offered the ability to opt out of any embellishments and just give us a pure Android experience. If Asus can do it, why can’t everyone else?

Jon Mundy / Foundry

On the positive side, navigation is fast and smooth, and the settings menus haven’t been messed around with too much. It’s reasonably intuitive to live with, and bloatware is conspicuous by its (relative) absence.

Unfortunately, Nubia appears to have rolled back from Nebula AIOS 1.5, and has reinstated its terrible Z-board screen to the left of the Home Screen. Instead of the usual Google Discover feed, you once again get a horrible selection of recommended apps and games on top of a trashy news widget.

This is the sort of overly fussy, congested custom Android UI that just makes me wish the manufacturer had offered the ability to opt out of any embellishments and just give us a pure Android experience

Once again, Nubia goes light on AI tools. It would be glib to try and paint this as a positive – whatever the state of today’s mobile AI provisions, we now come to expect them in key departments, and the Z80 Ultra falls short.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Nubia AI gives you a live translation tool, AI-powered call transcriptions and translations, and the usual basic Google Gemini-driven tools. It’s pretty sparse.

In terms of software support, the situation isn’t great at all. Nubia promises a mere three years of security updates and just a single major Android upgrade, while “push optimisations will be made based on market demand.” That’s one of the weakest assurances that I’ve seen, especially for a phone that costs north of £500.

Price & Availability

It’s difficult to pin Nubia down with its pricing at times, but the figures it gave to us ahead of the Z80 Ultra’s launch point to a surprising price cut.

The claimed “Official Retail Price” for the model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage is £579. That’s £70 cheaper than the starting price for the Nubia Z70 Ultra.

My own test model, which comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, as well as that snazzy Starry Night finish, costs £729. Finally, the range-topping model with 24GB/1TB costs £799.

All models are available from the Nubia UK website, though there’s no word on US availability at this stage, despite the Z70 Ultra being available there.

That’s an extremely low UK price for a phone with this level of performance, and indeed this comprehensive a set of specifications. This is a phone with a (relatively) premium build, a dedicated telephoto camera, a flagship processor, and even wireless charging – all available for less than half the price of a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Similarly-priced alternatives include the Xiaomi 15T (from £549) and Motorola Edge 60 Pro (from £599.99) – see more in our guide to the best mid-range phones.

Should you buy the Nubia Z80 Ultra?

Nubia has cranked up everything that made the Z70 Ultra so impressive, with class-leading performance and an ostensibly flagship-level spec list at an even cheaper mid-range price.

For anyone looking for the best performance possible in the sub-£600 category, there isn’t a phone to touch it at the time of writing. An enormous battery and impressive charging – now also in wireless form – help the Z80 Ultra to punch well above its weight.

Don’t think that you’re actually getting a true ‘Ultra’ experience, however. The design needs further refinement, while the camera system isn’t quite as pro-level as it initially seems to be, with variable quality and a clunky UI. The selfie camera is downright terrible, too.

Meanwhile, Nubia’s custom UI continues to require attention – or better yet, scrapping – in favour of a purer brand of Android.

But if you have your sights set on raw power at a bargain price, this could be your next phone.

Specs

• Android 16 with Nebula AIOS 2.0
• 6.85in, 1.5K, OLED, 144Hz, flat display
• In-display fingerprint sensor
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
• 12GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 256GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.7 main camera
• 50Mp, f/1.8 ultra-wide camera
• 64Mp, f/2.48 telephoto macro camera
• Up to 8K @ 30fps rear video
• 16Mp front-facing camera
• Stereo speakers
• Dual-SIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be
• Bluetooth 6.0
• 7200mAh battery
• 80W charging
• 164.5 x 77.2 x 8.6mm
• 227g
• Launch colours: Black, White, Blue